


Stanislavski

by FanFiction_Artist_Prototype



Series: Langst [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Insecure Lance (Voltron), Langst, Possible Character Death, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-27 22:38:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14435613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype/pseuds/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype
Summary: Stanislavski was a Russian actor who believed that to better himself as an actor, he should take a moment to re-enter a memory that evoked the felling his character was trying to portray. That way, he could tap into real, raw emotion. This helped him make his characters more living, 3D, human almost instead of fictional people.Lance decides to take this method and make it his own.





	1. Chapter 1

Lance had plenty of happy memories, sad memories, angry memories, excited memories ect. That's why it wasn't hard to just continue as normal when insecurities started to take hold. And when depression followed through.

It was before the Garrison that his insecurities had started to burrow themselves into him. He was the youngest, so it was no surprise that he had to fight for attention, he just hadn't thought it would be so hard. Marco was getting married at the time, had a kid of his own and had just gotten his dream job as a teacher at his old school. Veronica was in a relationship with a guy who was in the army and currently on his last military tour, she to had a kid of her own, and was an instructor at the local gym. Louis was only two years older than him, just finishing high school at the time and heading off to Uni, so unfortunately with how expensive higher education was it seemed like Lance would just have to settle for having high school as his final education.

That in itself was a low blow, he knew his parents didn't mean it, but he became second to his older brother and sister, with them looking after his nieces and helping plan Marco's wedding and then he couldn't even go to Uni? What was he supposed to do then? Sure, he had above average intelligence, but he had never thought of the future, it was too late to apply for scholarships this year and the parameters for getting in got tighter each year.

So his insecurities did stem from his inadequacy to his siblings and his inability to make himself seem important to his parents. He knew he was, he wasn't stupid. But sometimes he just needed that extra little encouragement, that was rarely given.

So his insecurities stemmed from before he exited the Garrison and got worse when he started getting compared to Keith. That's when he first started using Stanislavski. Tapping into a memory and using the emotions from that as his mask. Oh, someone wanted to try and tear him down? He just remembered how bold he felt showing off his new skateboard trick to Marco, and hey presto he was able to feel bold enough to just retort wittily to the bully and brush them off.

-*-

The depression came later. Closer to the time they went into space. Lance was running out of memories now. The thing is, once you revisit a memory so much, you start to emotional distance yourself from it. So, what once was a ‘Wow!’ turns into a ‘Eh.’, which isn’t a bad thing, if you’re able to keep making memories. And granted Lance had plenty of happy memories with Hunk and Pidge and the one or two girlfriends he'd actually managed to get but they were still built upon fake emotions, so they didn’t feel the same.

When they got into space, the depression sunk its claws.

They were alone in a war. They were children who’s families thought they were dead and were as good as dead. There wasn’t really a point to much besides survive and keep the team together so, while memories were made, they felt empty and hollow. A reflection of Lance himself. But that’s besides the point.

The longer they’re in space, the flatter his jokes get, the more annoyed the team get with him and the less emotional Lance finds himself to be. But you know what? It doesn’t matter, because in space it doesn’t matter right? They’re a family so surely he can just read them and make jokes that cause a small laugh or even a tiny smile to crack. But no. Never will and he won’t get a chance to now.

Because he’s ran out of time, memories and fight.


	2. The first time it happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Lance realises that maybe his act can't last forever.

The first time it happened, Shiro had almost died.

And he'd killed someone. Willingly. The mission, just like so many others, ended in a fire fight and Lance struggled to keep up. It seemed that whenever he shot down one, ten would take the fallen ones place.

_"Lance! I need back up!"_

_"Got it Pidge!"_

_"Wait Lance, where are you, I'm nearly surrounded I need help!"_

_Swivelling his gun he couldn't see anybody but Shiro, the others had gotten lost in the fray._

_"I can't see you guys! All I can see are Galra and Shiro!"_

_"I'm to the left of Shiro!"_

_He could see Hunk now, almost completely covered in the robotic enemies and Lance felt a pain in his heart seeing his best friend struggle._

_"Pidge where are you!?"_

_"I'm fine! I can see you on the ledge Lance, I'm across from you!"  
Looking up the blue paladin spotted the green one on a ledge out of the reach of any and all drones, taking them out with the small electric bayard._

_"Okay Hunk! I can take a few of them out but I'm gonna need Keith to get some of them off of you, I can't take the shot without shooting you currently."_

_An 'I'll be there in a tick' gave Lance the confidence to take his scope away from his best friend and focus in on the team leader and he didn't realise that he was screaming the older man's name until the black paladin barley managed to avoid a swipe from the Galran commander._

_"LANCE! FOCUS IN SHIRO! KEITH AND I WILL KEEP HUNK SAFE!"_

_Without responding, he had done just that, shooting all the drones that would of gotten in the way of Shiro's dodges and saw one particularly dangerous swipe actually meet it's intended destination and without thinking, when Lance saw the cross hares line up on the commanders head while the alien was going for the killing blow he fired. And without a second glance proceeded to take out more of the Galra drones that were losing sentience with the one controlling them gone._

__(*)_  
_

_Lance hadn't realised he'd killed the guy until he was flying the blue lion back to the castle, Black flanking him as he was carrying her injured paladin._

_"You're gonna be okay Shiro. You'll be fine, it's just a scratch right?"_

_THINK! THINK! THINK DAMN IT! He couldn't think of a time when he was calm. When was the last time he had been calm? Non of the normal memories would surface, Shiro was noticing damn it! The soldier was casting Lance a gaze that a man with such an injury shouldn't be sparing another._

_"Woah," a nasty cough came from the black paladin and Black's growl was heard in Lance's head, "Lance, bud. Calm down okay. You're right I'll be fine. Haggar's wormhole misadventures can't kill me and neither will this."_

_Why was he so calm!? Lance needed to be calm. He **needed** to be calm. Not just for Shiro, but when they got back to the castle. He needed to be able to pretend again. Everybody would be feeling low and he couldn't joke around if he wasn't calm._

_"Lance, are you sure you're okay?"_

_"Currently piloting my severely injured team leader, who's bleeding out by the way, with an angry mother lion flanking and mind link threatening me with the fact I actually killed someone looming over my head. But yeah, you know, besides that I'm fine."_

_Shiro didn't answer and Lance was glad. He'd just said it, dear god. He'd actually killed somebody. What the hell was wrong with him?! Sure when they blew up the battle ships they were potentially killing hundreds at a time, but this- this was personal. Lance could see the person/Galra that he had killed. Could imagine the split second of pain as the ammo of his bayard's gun form had entered his head. And he just couldn't get the thought out of his head that he had killed someone. He had killed. He was a murderer. A killer. Not a hero. Somebody that destroyed life instead of preserved. It hit him like a tonne of bricks._

_"You did what you had to Lance." The metallic prosthetic landed on his shoulder and instead of the chill that Lance got from the cool metal - yes even through his paladin's uniform-  he got a searing feeling. Like the technology was branding him for his crimes. Marking him as a criminal._

_"We all would of done the same Lance, I've- well you know-"_

_"It's fine Shiro. Just give me a moment and I'll be fine." Why did his voice sound so monotone? Was that really what he sounded like now? When he wasn't putting on an act was his voice truly that deep and dull?_

_"Lance-"_

_"I said Shiro. I'll. Be. Fine." The words were cut sharp, not intentionally but they shut up the black paladin._

_-(*)-_

_"Shiro!" The other paladins, Allura and Coran all rushed to the black paladins aid. Coran and Allura set up the pod and the other three sped the injured and bleeding man off to the med bay._

_Lance stayed behind though. He needed to calm down, work on his character. Besides, Blue got angsty the last time he forgot to clean up dried blood up from the inside of her cockpit. Granted it had been more that she was annoyed he hadn't told his team mates about the injury more than the actual blood itself._

_"Alright girl, let's get you cleaned up why don't we."_

_He spent an hour cleaning up and drying the inside of the lion's head. Getting rid of all ill traces of the outside. Blue's head was Lance's safe place. And as selfish as it sounded, he didn't want anything outside contaminating it. Sliding down into the chair, he picked up the helmet that he had left on the dash._

_"Looks like it's just you and me sweetheart." Normally he would atleast joke and flirt with his lion when he needed to get into the right headspace. But he couldn't right now. The last time he tried flirting with the lion she had given him a constant migraine until he had crawled out of bed and apologized, before being chewed out by the big robot for being disrespectful._

_"Okay...what memory haven't I ruined yet?" He sat in silence, eyes closed and just thought. Thought back to a time that he felt safe, felt calm. Felt in a stable enough headspace to deal with all the crazy shit going on around them. Nothing turned up. Apart from a very recent memory._

_A memory of him and Blue, after one of his mini break downs after a mission, the purring of the lion had calmed him down. He laughed as he heard the lion actually rumbling again, it not just being his imagination recreating the sound. "Thanks girl, gotta go now, see you later. My audience won't wait forever you know."_

_So, he climbed out of the chair, down the stairs and as Blue went back to her 'shut down mode' he pressed a kiss to his hand before pressing the hand to Blue's leg._

_-(*)-_

_"Lance! Where were you! You just left the other paladins to help Shiro! Did you not see how badly he was hurt-"_

_Lance took a deep breath, which effectively stopped the princess. She hadn't seen him look so serious before._

_"The blood I just spent the last vargra scrubbing out of Blue wasn't an indication at all Princess. Sorry Princess, I'll go visit him now. Give him his helmet back."_

_And then he just walked off, stiff and unnatural. Allura couldn't quite place it, but Lance seemed almost...what was the word?_

**_Fake._ **

_He seemed almost fake, like he wasn't really all there. Like when the irony came out it wasn't the iconic Lance McClain wit the blue paladin was known for, but rather just a show. Like he **had** to say something like that._

_-(*)-_

So yeah, the first time he let's his act slip it's not pretty.

He's still thinking about it now, as he sits on his bed the few seconds in which he pulled the trigger creeping up on him again and again. Just like a vindictive parent would reprimand a bratty child.

Shiro has been in the pod for just under a quintan now and he still hasn't visited except when he told Allura he had, and it had only been a few seconds. Ignoring everybody else and simply placing his freshly cleaned helmet next to his bloodied armour, and then walking right back out. The others probably figured that he didn't want to look at him. Didn't want to look at the man he couldn't protect and that's just another thing to add to the list.

**1) Attention seeker**

**2) Selfish**

**3) Undeserving**

**4) Replacement**

And now, **5) Incompetent**.

A mental list that runs through his mind every time he sits in this cage of a room for too long. The reason he wore a sleep mask, so he didn't have to see the words printed on the empty walls every time the darkness sunk in. Of course, some nights would be good. Some nights he could convince himself that he was just being stupid and that non of his insecurities and depressive thoughts were true and that if he just got out of bed and went next door, he could talk to Hunk about everything. Because Hunk wouldn't judge. But of course, if the world was so simple he wouldn't of been a teenage soldier trapped in a ten thousand year old piece of metal, floating around the cosmos and saving entire planets and currently battling with a mental illness that nobody should ever have to endure along with currently thinking about the fact that by nineteen he would of killed more than a thousand people, and who knew how many of them would be up close.

"Lance," oh yay, it's Keith. Number four pops into his mind before he crushes it. No, they have Shiro to worry about, time to stop being self-deprecating. "Shiro's up. He wants to speak to you. Hunk would of come but he was in the middle of baking and Pidge was well...I don't know where Pidge is but that's besides the point." He can just feel how tense Keith is. They were getting better at talking to each other, but things were still a little rocky.

Opening the door to his room he realises how close to the door Keith is as the red paladin nearly falls through the open door. "That interested in me that you're taking any opportunity to get closer to me?" He can see the tension leave Keith's shoulders slightly. "I didn't know you loved me so much Samurai." The small little smile that plays on Keith's lips makes number four fully disappear. He was friend's with Keith and he isn't going to blame anything on them. It's not his fault.

"Let's go see Shiro."

He put's on a smile.

Maybe he can forget the memories?

Maybe.

"Yeah, it seemed really urgent. Something about the mission."

No.

No he can't.


End file.
